bricks'n'gears

Thursday, July 11, 2013

I have decided to stop posting new entries for a while, possibly forever.

Starting this year I have tried to keep it running with weekly material about building, cars, planes. There are many things to write about, but it has been increasingly difficult to find the time for it. On the time that I still have is better spent with trying to build something.

So there will be no new material. But it is worth following the stuff that I build.

Friday, June 14, 2013

I was hesitating a lot if I should write this post, but at the end I have decided to go with it. It is all about existing builds, but I am mostly interested what can be still considered LEGO and what unconventional techniques exist to stretch this definition.

When someone builds from bricks, the goal is usually to create something that looks good. Most builds never end up in the hands of many other people. There are exhibitions, but even there people are not allowed to touch the models. And there are many which are only shared via photos over the net. The competition is strong, so builders sometimes end up with unexpected solutions. Let us go after some of them.

One general expectation is that a LEGO model should be built from LEGO bricks. So far so good. But how strong does it have to be? From photos it is impossible to tell if a connection is so weak that it falls apart from the first touch. Most builders try to make the model massive, but since shape is much more apparent on a photo than strength, shape wins in many cases. If someone tries to grab a model at a random point, it may very easily end up like this:

According to the unwritten and sometimes written rules the builder is not allowed to physically cut bricks, except a very limited number of special ones like flexible tubes. One is typically also allowed to use stickers though, since this is common practice in many factory models. But stickers sometimes end up in places where not everyone expects them to be. Have you seen a brick like this, for example?

Or how about this:

I am pretty sure I would have never thought about putting a sticker there. Some models go much further than this though. This Spitfire has its entire camouflage made of stickers:

Painting bricks is less common, but you can still find a couple of examples. like this other Spitfire from our recent post:

An in an extreme case even the bricks get modified like the windscreen on this truck from INDOMITUS (via kockagyár):

The possibilities are endless when the model is built a computer only. CAD programs are sophisticated, but even so they rarely contain crash simulation. LEGO Digital Designer is able to test if all parts of the model are connected, which is more than nothing, but it is still no guarantee that the model is able to support its own weight in reality. But this is more than what is offered by other LEGO software: most LDraw editors do not have anything, it is up to the builder to ensure that the model can be actually built.

Even more, CAD tools typically do not know which parts exist in which colors. Or maybe they exist, but it costs a small fortune because supply is far smaller than demand (via Eurobricks).

And if someone has POV-Ray in his hands, can do even more. Do you notice that the yellow color used on this bus has been tweaked a bit to be more similar to the yellow used on the original buses?

And how about some Photoshop? Who recognizes what is wrong with this Spitfire photo?

If you consider yourself a LEGO builder, you most likely know what Bricklink is. Otherwise, your first question is: what is it, and why should I care?

Bricklink is an unofficial marketplace for anything related to LEGO including sets and bricks. If you look at any creation on the net, chances are that it contains a significant amount of bricks purchased via Bricklink.

Nico71 has build a classic rallye car. This one does not follow the classic super car recipe very strictly: it is slightly smaller and does not contain any cylinders or gearbox. It does contain a suspension and a full drivetrain though, driven by PF motors. Everything can be controlled from the remote, making it one of the smallest remote-controllable Technic cars. (via SETechnic)

Last but not least a very unique creation from Egor Karshiev: The BOSS. As it can be seen on the video this is a trial track with serious climbing capabilities. Like the rallye car above it can be fully remote controlled too.

But the real special thing about it is that you will be able to buy one too: this is the winning contestant of the LEGO Design Challenge. As TechnicBRICKs posted, production has already begun! There is no word on the price yet, but we are looking forward to it.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

It does not happen very often that there is a post about a single person's creations, but it is worth making an exception today.

As I started to build war planes a while ago, my goal was to find a scale that is the smallest possible, but still gives me enough room to incorporate many interesting details. I have settled at 1:48. This is the scale at which the MiG-15 and the Bf-109 has been built, and this will be the scale for the next few too. I have never dreamt that it would be worth going smaller.

But the planes of Dieterr89 prove that it is more than worth it. He built an entire air force at 1:70. This is a Messerschmitt 109. It represents the shape and colors of the original aircraft as truly as possible:

Its opponent from the Eastern front is a Lavochkin La-5. This is a truely unique build, you cannot find many Soviet WWII planes built from LEGO. To make it more special, it has a radial engine:

In the case of the desert Ju-87 Stuka it was an extra challenge to build the fixed landing gear and the angled wing:

Saturday, May 18, 2013

There was so much going on in the past few weeks that for today we transform ourselves into a news portal and give you an update about recent happenings.

Competitions:

As in recent years, the Lego Military Build Competition has started. This years categories do not favor aircraft so much as during the past years, but for sure we will see lots of excellent creations. The first submissions are on the way, the deadline is July 10th.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Building awesome models is cool, but I think it is even cooler to build several awesome models that match each other in scale, let it be about train engines by depi, cars, aircraft or something else. As I rebuilt the MiG-15 and finished the Messerschmitts I knew there will be more.

The new member is a Supermarine Spitfire Mark Vb. This was the last version with characteristic three-blade propeller of the early versions.

This is my first plane that uses a camouflage scheme. I think the dark green-dark bluish gray combination fits it quite nicely. It required more thinking than the previous planes as not every brick I needed was available in all the colors. I decided to build the markings from bricks as long as I can, I am quite happy with this one. With a USAF or Soviet plane I would have been in more trouble.

I was not happy with the existing Bf-109s either. As Dieterr89 pointed out, the wings were too narrow, especially when compared to the Spitfire. The Spitfire has a larger wing, but not by that much. The other problem was that the front section of the body was too wide. As I built the original version I was already thinking about how else can it be done, but the real inspiration came only while building the Spitfire.

So I rebuild the Swiss and the Hungarian Bf-109 as well. This was a serious rebuild, only the tail, the nosecone and the landing gear stayed intact. The wing is a bit longer now and the fuselage has been rebuilt completely together with the canopy.

I am much more content with it now. It looks like recently I need several iterations with all my models. With the Spitfire I am happy as it is, I hope it's going to stay like that.

Mad Physicist has built a quite recent police car from Moscow. As one of the commenters says "Ugly car in reality, and yours is true replica :)". Well, there is quite a bit of truth in that.

This fantasctic Ural motorcycle by Lino M was featured on Brothers Brick too. I have not seen this in real life a lot. The Soviet flag gives it an extra charm.

This ZISZ 110 from rabidnovaracer is pretty cool too. To me this car model represents one of the darkest ages of communism as it was used during the 50s during the most avid terror by the the highest ranked people in the party in several countries.

This is a somewhat friendlier piece, the luxury car from Chechoslovakia with a V8 engine: the Tatra 603 from lego911:

Rolic has built this Latvia RAF-2203 (yes, RAF stands for Riga Autobus Factory in this case). I have seen plenty of these as a kid.

Of course I could not stand not to build something. The Trabi has existed for a while, but the LUGNuts challenge made me realize that I did not take any photos yet. Yet another problem to solve was proportions: the old model was simply too flat. Luckily I have found a way to inject two layers of plates to make it taller without a major rebuilt. I am much happier with the result now:

I wanted to build something truly new too. As during last month I used up most of my Bricklink budget already, this Ikarus 260 was built on the computer only:

The front is quite similar to some existing Ikarus builds, not too different from the solution of ainex. I tried to build the doors, windows and the rear lights a bit more special. Hope you like it!

Sunday, April 28, 2013

LEGO is very popular all over the net: if you would like to build, you will find a lot of help: you can get bricks from Bricklink, older sets from Ebay, instructions and inspiration from one of the many community sites.

But for most of us, this is a hobby to spend our time and money. Well-known builders sometimes create instructions for their creations but frequently they don't. This is no surprise: many of the models gathering fame are complicated, fragile or contain special pieces.

An interesting exception is Daniel Siskind, the man behind Brickmania. He built his own business to create and sell sets without any official ties to the LEGO Company. Wars that happened for real are a taboo for LEGO's own designers (for understandable reasons) and this is the gap Brickmania tries to fill: the website offers more than 50, mostly military themed sets starting from World War II until armies in recent history.

The models are built from real LEGO bricks. Since these models are much more special than the ones you can buy in LEGO stores, they are noticeably pricier. For example this Jeep at $35 is one of the cheapest models. It is part of the 'Durabuilder' series, which in my interpretation means that it will not immediately fall apart if kids take it into their hands.

For this the buyer gets an individually packaged set in similar quality, but much more rare, including minifigs and other extras depending on the set.

Tanks form the bulk of the selection: there are German, American and Soviet vehicles as well, for example the T-34 below. This set is a lot more complex than the Jeep: it includes a fully rotating turret, a driver and the tracking mechanism. It contains 724 bricks and at $345 is noticeably pricier.

Besides tanks there are other types of vehicles. The CCKW truck below was widely used by US armed forces during WWII. This is a medium set at $100.

There are a few aircraft too, like this P-51 Mustang. Similarly to the Jeep it is also a part of the Durabuilder line. The number of pieces and price at $100 are similar to the CCKW.

There are probably quite a few of readers at this point who think these sets are way too expensive. On one hand this is understandable since LEGO is not the cheapest toy and these models are clearly above the price level of the official ones.

On the other hand it is also clear that the founder has invested a lot of his time and energy into Brickmania. These models were be designed, instructions printed and individually packaged. They are likely sold in much smaller quantities than official LEGO sets. The most difficult problem is probably to acquire the required bricks in sufficient quantities at a good price. For comparison, buying all bricks for my somewhat smaller sized MiG-15 already cost more than $80 and quite a bit of time.

Overall, I think that if you are into military LEGO sets but would not like to spend time designing and buying parts for your own model, Brickmania is a good alternative.